Edna Dancing Cloud Duncan, a Central Band of Cherokees tribe member, is proud to be newly recognized as Native American.

Battle grows bitter as Tenn. recognizes new Indian tribes

By Clay Carey, USA TODAY

LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn.  For the first 12 years of her life, Edna Duncan was — as far as she knew — Anglo.

Then, a genealogy study unearthed her father's Cherokee blood, and chance meetings brought her to a Native American prayer circle inside a storefront in this small city southwest of Nashville.

There, brothers and sisters in the Central Band of Cherokee tribe now know her as Dancing Cloud. When she got the clan name two years ago, Duncan says, "I found myself."

Her tribe went through its own transformation when it was one of six groups formally recognized as Indian tribes on June 19 by the Tennessee Commission of Indian Affairs.

For years, the tribes have been fighting for recognition, which brings with it federal money and new opportunities for individual members. But the argument over whether men and women like Duncan are part of legitimate tribes remains a bitter one.

Mark Miller, a spokesman for the Oklahoma-based Cherokee Nation, said the groups are stealing the identity of established tribes.

"Part of my family, way back, is from Germany," Miller said. "I can go to Oktoberfest and I can do the songs and dances. But it doesn't make me a German citizen, and I can't create my own Germany."

A coalition of 10 former state Indian Affairs commissioners sent a letter to the state's attorney general and secretary of State in late June claiming the vote that made the tribes legitimate was tainted by ethical lapses and unlawful secrecy.

Members of the newly recognized tribes say a drop of Native American blood is enough to make a person an Indian.

Genealogical research and DNA tests prove their lineage, says Joe Sitting Owl White, principal chief of the Central Band of Cherokee.

"We are Cherokee, no matter what anybody else says," White says.

With state recognition, Tennessee tribe members have formal minority status in Tennessee, so they can rightly identify themselves as Native Americans on loan paperwork, job applications and other documents, White said.

The commission's decision also puts the tribes one step closer to the sort of formal federal government recognition that would bring funding for health care, education, job training and tribal administration.

Mark Greene, a Nashville lobbyist who works for the Cherokee Nation, says the Cherokee Nation doesn't deny that the members of the Tennessee tribes — which Greene calls "culture clubs" and "Indian heritage organizations" — have Indian lineage. The Cherokee Nation filed suit on June 30 asking a Davidson County Chancery Court judge to void the state commission's decision.

"What we absolutely dispute is that they are tribes," Greene said. "We believe these culture clubs will confuse the public," marketing "fake Indian crafts" and spreading bad information about Cherokee traditions and rituals.

The former commissioners who wrote Attorney General Bob Cooper, a Democrat, claim the vote violated public meeting laws and also allege a conflict of interest, saying that four of the six commissioners who voted on the issue belonged to some of the newly recognized tribes.

Alice Gwin Henry, one of the four accused of that conflict, said she is three-quarters Cherokee and part of the Tanasi Council, which has close to 2,500 members across west and middle Tennessee. Henry, 69, said she didn't see it as a conflict to vote for recognition for her own tribe.

"Without proof (of Indian lineage), we couldn't have done this," Henry said. "We are all descendants of those ancient people."

There are 564 federally recognized Indian tribes in the U.S., according to Nedra Darling, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. There are no federally recognized tribes in Tennessee. The Central Band of Cherokee applied for federal recognition in 2000. Their application is still in progress, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs website.

Once federal recognition is granted, smaller tribes with between 1,501 and 3,000 members can get $320,000 a year in federal start-up funds for up to three years, she said.

For individuals like Edna Dancing Cloud Duncan, the debate is about personal identity. Before the commission vote, she said, she felt like an outcast in the Native American community.

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